


the same story the crow told me

by synecdochic



Series: the eurydiceverse [14]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Ascension, Dreams, Everyone Has Issues, Fuck the Ancients, Hallowed be the Ori, Imported, Multi, Prophetic Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-28
Updated: 2007-10-28
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6433165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a night like any other, six months after Daniel disappears: five dreams, five gifts, five pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the same story the crow told me

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/164389.html) 2007-10-28.)
> 
> For those just tuning in, this is part of the Eurydiceverse, the accidental series in which their walls are built with cannonballs and their motto is 'don't tread on me' -- the one where all their damage doesn't reset at the end of 42 minutes.
> 
> This is the point at which it's pretty obvious that I roll to disbelieve the entire resolution to the Ori storyline -- for everything past "The Quest", I refuse to take as canon anything involving the Ori. I still do intend to someday write the novel that makes the Ori make sense, dammit.
> 
> This also takes as canon princessofg's [Like Little Mice We'll Wait](http://princessofg.livejournal.com/213397.html).

****

i.

The moon is incandescent white, striking the ocean and radiating up to Cam's eyes, and behind him, the city is silver and chrome. He's sitting at the edge of Atlantis's south-side pier, on the last step before the ocean comes to claim the city. His legs are dangling in the neap tide; the water is soaking his pants, wicking up past his knees, making the salt-sticky fabric cling to his skin. It feels like the wee hours, the witching hours. There are no sounds from the city, just the rhythmic susurration of water striking metal, over and over again.

"Pretty," the voice comes from behind him, and Cam turns to look over his shoulder. Jackson's standing there: hands tucked in the pockets of his khakis, looking around himself with a curious sort of interest Cam can't remember ever seeing on his face before. 

There's something wrong, but Cam can't tell what. "Yeah," he says. Jackson isn't wearing his glasses. His face looks different without them: younger, somehow. More open. 

"I never loved the ocean," Jackson says absently. "Not the way you do. There's too much desert in me." He sits down next to Cam, close enough that Cam can feel the heat radiating from his skin, as though his words were the absolute truth: as though Jackson has drawn the heat of desert's breath into him and is now reflecting it back. 

"I don't --" Cam starts, his protest automatic; Cam's a child of the sky, through and through. Then he stops, because Jackson's not wrong. Night or day, the line where the ocean meets the sky is the most perfect horizon the world could possibly ever show: blue meeting endless blue or black meeting depths of black, receding into the distance, its perfection always so far out of reach that it reminds him there are lovely things that are forever unattainable. 

It's the latter now; the horizon's smudged black by night and stars. Jackson's smiling at him: open, beautiful. It's a smile Cam's never before laid eyes on. "Hi," Jackson says, and there's laughter in his voice. He lifts a hand and brushes Cam's cheek with his fingers; it feels like Cam can feel every whorl and arch of his fingerprints. "How're you holding up?"

"I'm good," Cam says, before he can think about it. It's a rote response, but he's surprised to find it's true. Then he frowns, because there's some reason it shouldn't be. The faint discordant note of _wrong_ sharpens, then ebbs away like the tide. 

"Good," Jackson says. "I was worried."

He rests his hand on the nape of Cam's neck. Cam's breath hitches at the feel of it: heavy and strong, a comfort, a benediction. He must hold himself still to keep from turning his face and resting his forehead against Jackson's shoulder. He's trained himself out of that easy affection; Jackson's never invited it. 

"I'm good," Cam says again. "Really. I -- I've got a lot of people who love me."

He doesn't know what they're talking about. It seems like the right thing to say, though. 

Jackson laughs again, a soft chuff. His thumb strokes circles on the side of Cam's neck. "Yeah," he says. "You do. More than you think."

The weather's sublime. The depths of night, the hint of recent rain, warm enough that the air isn't chilly, but the sun's not up yet to make him sweat. Jackson points one foot in perfect ballet form, taps the toes against the surface of the water. Looks over at Cam, from the corners of his eyes, and then skims his foot over the water lightning-quick to send a spray of droplets skittering across Cam's skin. 

"Hey," Cam protests, laughing, and leans over, nudging his shoulder against Jackson's, trying to bear him over and into the ocean. Jackson's laughing too, free and easy. His hand slides down Cam's back to take rest along his hip; his arm is strong, encircling, and Cam leans back against it.

Then he frowns.

"I'm dreaming," he says. Because of course he must be dreaming. Jackson is watching him with a world of tenderness in his eyes, all the things Cam made himself never hope Jackson would say. 

"Easier if you think that," Jackson says, agreeably. Which just reinforces the premise, because "tender" and "agreeable" are two words that just don't apply to Jackson. Cam's known that for a while. In another world, maybe, he would have been upset or disappointed or hurt by it, but there's little about Cam's world that's normal, and he's come to be surprisingly okay with this fact. Jackson simply _is_. Cam has no words for what Jackson is to him. He doesn't think the words exist.

Cam tries to straighten up. It doesn't feel right to use his conjuration of Jackson to obtain something he doesn't think Jackson would ever willingly give. But Jackson's grip tightens, and Cam breathes out on a sigh. Guy can't be responsible for his own dreams. 

He rests his head on Jackson's shoulder, the way he wants, the way he's never been able to do outside of their rites and rituals. Jackson turns and rubs his cheek against the crown of Cam's head. Everything smells like salt water and breeze; Cam can't catch the scent of Jackson's underneath it, even with his nose pressed so close.

They stay like that for a minute, Cam breathing in the peace of the morning, until Jackson stirs. He says, "Cam, I need you to remember something for me."

"Okay," Cam says. It's what you say in dreams when they're trying to tell you something.

"Behold, I show you a mystery," Jackson says. "Third time's the charm. Jack's right. Listen to him."

_We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the winking of an eye._ Why is Jackson gone? Cam can't remember. _Death is swallowed up in victory; O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting?_

He turns his face. Jackson's watching him so intently Cam thinks Jackson might be able to see straight through him and out the other side. "I don't understand," Cam confesses.

Jackson smiles, but there's something soft and sad in his eyes. "You don't have to," he says. "Just remember. When you wake up. I miss you guys. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Dreams are strange places. Cam can feel the currents of the water drifting around his toes. Jackson's pants are completely dry. There's a part of Cam that wants to argue, without him even knowing why, but Jackson's eyes are on his face, willing him to believe. Cam wonders what part of his subconscious is speaking to him with Jackson's face. 

"I miss you," Cam says. Dreams are strange places; he can be honest here.

Jackson's hand spreads out against the small of Cam's back. "I know you do," he says. "I miss you too. I shouldn't have come, but I needed -- to remind myself, maybe. To make sure you were all right. To remember. I'm going to go fix things. I'm going to go fix them right this time. I'm not frightened anymore."

Cam can't imagine anything Jackson could possibly be frightened of. But even if this is a dream, he owes Jackson all the comfort Jackson's never wanted to accept from him. He puts his palm on Jackson's thigh. "Let me help," he says.

Jackson cocks his head. "There isn't anything -- no, wait." He narrows his eyes. "Come here."

Whatever Cam could say, whatever question he could ask, is washed away by Jackson's palms cradling his face, Jackson's mouth brushing across his. The kiss is wholly pure and wholly chaste. It leaves Cam's lips burning. When it ends, he is left with the curious feeling of having _given_ Jackson something, something Jackson's looking for, something Jackson needs. It's the first time he can ever remember feeling like Jackson's wanted something he had to offer.

"Peace be with you," Jackson says, so close Cam can feel the breath feathering his face. His eyes, this close, are the color of the ocean, of the sky. 

_And with your spirit._ "Come home safely," Cam says. He feels open. Immense. Vast with a love that encompasses the whole of creation. 

Jackson smiles. "I will," he says. "Don't worry. It'll be all right."

Said like that, Cam almost believes.

 

****

ii.

Sam is dreaming of midnight in a city she's never visited. The night smells of magnolia and jasmine and the thick, heavy waft of incense drifting out from an open door. She tucks her hands into her pockets and walks past a bar where people are talking in low voices. She doesn't peek her head in.

It's rare she has volition in dreams; she'll make the most of it when she does. Usually she feels as though she's moving through a scripted dance, but this dream feels different. She steps over a puddle that's overflowed the gutter and feels the uneven paving-stones beneath her boot-heels. The wail of a single saxophone drifts upon the breeze. 

"Hey, sailor," she hears, and turns her head. Daniel has fallen into step next to her. She slows her pace, but doesn't stop. ( _Don't look back._ ) "Come here often?"

"No," Sam says. It isn't the first time she's dreamed about Daniel since he left them. She tries not to make the dreams mean anything; they're always just replays of all the times she's lost him before.

"Buy you a cup of coffee?" he says. He's smiling. That's new. "I hear the beignets are to die for."

Something flares in her chest. (Suspicion. Hope. Despair.) She keeps her voice even. "It's really you, isn't it."

"In the flesh," he agrees. "Or ... not. You know what I mean. I've got a few minutes. How are you doing?"

She curls her hands into fists in her pockets. Dimly, she's conscious of _anger_ \-- anger at his lighthearted dismissal of his own death-not-death, anger at his having taken this long to let them know they could stop looking for him, anger at him for leaving her. For leaving them. 

Five years ago the anger had been overshadowed by grief. Five years ago she'd been about as in touch with her own emotions as a turnip. Five years is a long damn time. 

His question has two equal and opposite answers: _just fine_ and _not all that great, really_. She chooses the middle ground. "We're holding up. How are things where you are?"

"Little up, a little down," he says. Then gets serious. "I'm sorry, Sam. I came as soon as I could."

It could mean that, wherever he was, it took this long before he came close enough to death to Ascend again. It could mean that he Ascended just after he left them, that what was left of Merlin helped him without the urgency of death, and it took this long before he remembered they'd be looking for him. She lets it go. She doesn't want to get into an argument with Daniel about his priorities, and she doesn't really think she wants an answer. "Am I going to remember this when I wake up?" she asks. It's not fair for everyone else to keep waiting for news.

Daniel shakes his head. "I don't know. This is new to me. Reaching out to someone when their mind isn't already receptive, I mean. I had to try pretty hard just to get through, and I can't stay long. I just --" He stops, and she stops automatically as well. They're in the center of the crossing roads, and she can feel the light wind against her cheek. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm fucking this up."

"Yeah," she agrees, but she's smiling; her anger's drifting away. "You kind of are. I think I am too. I don't know how this is supposed to go."

He laughs. "I was expecting to have to spend most of my time convincing you this was real," he confesses. 

She shakes her head. "I gave up skepticism for Lent," she says. Daniel laughs, as he's supposed to. They've had hundreds of conversations about religious rituals neither of them believe in. "Seriously, Daniel. Are you all right?"

She's expecting a quick, flip answer, something light and reassuring. What she gets instead is pursed lips and a considering look. It takes away her last lingering doubts. If this were her own mind playing tricks on her, she'd get the answer she wanted to hear: that everything was going to be okay. 

"I think so," he finally says. "This has all been -- crazy. Insane. I am coming back, though. There's just something big I have to do first."

She cocks her head. "Why come back?" she asks. Then feels herself flushing. "Not that I don't want you back. It's just -- you've always said that you could do more, that you could help more --"

They've never really talked about Ascension, but she knows that Daniel didn't come back to them out of his ties to the world; the first time he was cast out, the second resulted from obligation and duty. Which tells her why he would feel that he has to come back again. "We can handle it," she says. "The fight. The Ori. Don't feel like you have to come back just for us."

He looks surprised. "But I do," he says. 

She wants to leave it at that, wants to let him keep thinking that he can't go off and leave them alone to save the world again. It's selfish and it's self-centered, because it's the only way she thinks she's going to ever get him back. But if anyone's sacrificed enough on the altar of obligation and duty, it's Daniel, and maybe she's finally grown up enough over the years to love him enough to let him go.

"Go," she says. "Go do what you want to do."

He reaches out and catches both of her hands. "I am," he says, as though it's the most self-evident thing in the world. "That's why I'm coming back."

It leaves her breathless. Speechless. She clings to his hands (warm, solid, _real_ ) as an anchor. For a minute, she wonders if she's conjuring this conversation for herself after all; she can't imagine anything she'd want to hear from his lips more than the declaration he has just made. 

"Do something for me," Daniel is saying. 

It takes her a minute before she can fumble for her voice. "God. Daniel. Anything." For what he's done for her, for what he's been to her, for all the things he's given her. _Anything_. She knows just enough to know that her life without Daniel in it would have been cold and bare and sterile. He's taught her how to love without holding too tightly, but more than that, he's taught her how to love herself. She can't imagine anything he could ask of her that wouldn't be worth that gift.

He studies her face. "Believe," he says. 

She waits for the rest of the sentence, but it doesn't come. "In?" she prompts. 

"This. Me. I don't know. I don't even really know what I'm asking. I just know -- I need for you to believe that I'm coming back. That I can make it through this. I just --"

"Faith," Sam says. A door slams somewhere down an alley; she can hear a dog barking. There's nobody else on the street. "You need faith."

He seems to have forgotten that he's holding her hands. "Yeah," he says. "Kind of having trouble finding it in myself. I figured I'd ask you to supply it instead."

She doesn't ask what he's planning. Doesn't want to know, really. Daniel's asked her to believe in him, and -- this once -- she will make that leap of faith unquestioning. Knowing Daniel, it will probably be easier if she doesn't know.

"You know," she says, instead of pushing him to tell her, "people always wonder why we're all crazy. Really, you'd think that after a few times of hearing stories about things like missing teammates turning up in dreams to talk about mysterious jobs they have to do, it'd be pretty self-evident."

He stares at her for a minute, like he's thinking of being horrified that she's joking about whatever it is he's facing down, like he's thinking she might have flipped her lid. Then he throws back his head and laughs. It's a beautiful sound, free and open and unfettered. It makes her grin back at him, and -- while he's still laughing -- turn her face up to kiss him a promise. 

She never has to stand on tiptoe to kiss her men. It took her a long time to realize she likes it that way. This is a different Daniel, one she can touch without worrying whether or not she'll have to pull back her hand before it gets burned. She's loved Daniel for a long time, and she's never made the mistake of thinking he's safe; _safe_ and _safety_ are two different things. But through all the years, he's never failed her when it counts. Not once. She'll believe that this time won't be anything different.

He puts his arms around her and pulls her close. "I love you, Sam," he says, into her hair. "I'm sorry I never told you."

She rests her cheek against his shoulder. "It's all right," she says. "You just did."

 

****

iii.

He is racing, fleet of foot in a way he has not been since his long-spent youth, across a rocky and uneven mountain pathway. It does not feel like danger. He is running for the sake of running, of having a body that will do what he asks of it and the freedom to task it for no purpose other than joy. The air is crisp and cold; the light of three moons paint the sky with just enough light that he may be certain he will not turn an ankle, and enough that he cannot see the stars.

When he rounds the bend and finds Daniel Jackson sitting atop the boulder beside the path, he does not allow himself to be surprised. He brings himself to a rest; his breath comes soft in his ears, his heart working evenly to sustain him. " _Tek'ma'te_ , Daniel Jackson," he says. He will not speak further. If this is a vision, he will let the vision speak. 

Daniel Jackson is smiling. It is a calm smile, a rueful one. The Tau'ri have never been taught by necessity to school their expressions. " _Tek'ma'te_ , Teal'c," he says. "It's good to see you again."

"And you as well," Teal'c says. He inclines his head. He will afford the vision the respect he would give to Daniel Jackson himself.

_Dreams teach_ , Daniel Jackson said once. Teal'c is unaccustomed to dreaming; he will be made uncomfortable by the necessity of sleep for the remainder of his days. But he has had dreams of significance before, and he is learning to recognize the signs.

Daniel Jackson turns his head, looking down at the world spread out beneath them. Teal'c remembers this place. The valley below is the site of what, until he came to the Tau'ri, he considered his greatest victory. Two armies of thousands, clashing upon the battlefield. Teal'c cannot remember the fiction for which they fought. He had guided Apophis's men to victory, and the dust and clay had run red with the blood of enemy and fellow alike.

It is lush and verdant now by moonlight, no shadows of the death Teal'c's hands had shaped. Teal'c is uncertain whether the sight comforts him or shames him. He does not wish to think that his actions scarred the face of a world forever, but it seems unjust that those deaths should be forgotten as though they never were.

"It's not, you know," Daniel Jackson says. His speech is absentminded, as though he is answering an observation Teal'c is not conscious of having made with a statement he is not conscious of making in return. "Nothing is ever forgotten. _Omnia mutantur; nihil interit_."

In the way of dreams, Teal'c understands Daniel Jackson's words: _everything changes; nothing is lost_. It is a curious message from one who has been changed so many times Teal'c has begun to suspect that there is little more holding him together but strength of will and scraps of memory. 

Had he met Daniel Jackson for the first time as what he has become through the years, Teal'c would have felt no guilt at naming him danger, for he has seen the destruction Daniel Jackson can bring with him: it is no less savage for the fact that it is only rarely physical. But he knows that each of Daniel Jackson's broken places is a scar won in honorable battle. He, perhaps alone of them all, knows there are few limits to the damage war can bring. That Daniel Jackson is still standing upon the field is to his credit, and though he wishes it were not so, Teal'c will not disapprove of the ways Daniel Jackson has managed to integrate his losses.

This, though -- this man before him -- bears none of those tell-tale wounds. Daniel Jackson seems quiet, but Teal'c can see the signs of healing within him. It is made manifest by regret. Daniel Jackson's scars may be honorable, but the damage they have caused others is tremendous; Teal'c has never said a word, because Daniel Jackson was not ready to face the damage he has caused. He thinks that perhaps his words would find fertile ground now, were he to say them. Teal'c has known what it is like to come face to face with the sum total of your actions to that day, to be judged and found wanting, even if only in the silence of your own mind. It results in the determination he sees in Daniel Jackson's face now.

"How do you know?" Daniel Jackson asks. His eyes are still upon the long-forgotten battlefield, but Teal'c's spine stiffens: this is no idle question. "When to stop. How far to go. How do you know what's necessary, and what's just convenient? How do you make that decision?"

Teal'c considers his answer carefully before he speaks; he will take the time to answer truly, not quickly. What Daniel Jackson is asking is not _how do you make that decision_. It is _how do you live with having made that decision_. It is a question Teal'c cannot answer for someone else -- his own answers took him long to find, and he carries with him, still and always, things he cannot face in the cold light of day. But if he has been brought here so that Daniel Jackson may ask, it is an answer he will do his best to give. 

"Sometimes you do not," he says. "Every conflict has facets, depending upon where one stands. It is the burden of those who study war to weigh those facets, and to understand that every decision has consequences."

Daniel Jackson laughs, soft and deep. "Consequences I know," he says. "I just -- I don't know if I have the right to decide."

That, too, speaks of an insight Teal'c has not seen Daniel Jackson possess; he has always persisted in believing he has the right to shape the destiny of others. 

Again, it is as though Teal'c's thoughts are transparent. Daniel Jackson turns his head; his eyes go straight through Teal'c, old beyond their measure. "I have the chance to end this," he says. "Forever. All of it. Even the parts of it none of us knew about. I thought I could do it, when I was getting here. Now I'm not sure."

"I cannot answer that for you," Teal'c says. He makes his voice as gentle as possible, knowing Daniel Jackson will hear the care it carries. Daniel Jackson has learned to interpret him. "Every decision bears its consequence, whether those decisions are vast or small. Every decision harms someone and benefits someone else. Sometimes you must accept that your actions will harm others, and make the decision despite the harm those decisions may incur. It may not be the correct decision. But you must make it, for deciding not to decide is a decision itself."

Daniel Jackson holds the stare one moment longer, then looks away. He drops his face into his hands; his voice is muffled against his palms. "I was afraid of that," he says. 

"You go to battle," Teal'c says. It is not a question. He does not need to ask; Daniel Jackson has told him. It is simply necessary that Daniel Jackson know he has heard.

"Yeah," Daniel Jackson says, and lifts his face, scrubbing his hands over it before letting them fall. "Yeah. I do. I am. I have."

Teal'c nods. "Then I am by your side." He has made that decision long ago, for good or for ill. He will not ever renounce it.

_Dreams teach_ , Daniel Jackson has told him. But this is not Teal'c's dream, and the lesson not his to learn. He has been brought here to bear witness. It is not the first time he has served this function for Daniel Jackson, nor Daniel Jackson for him. It will not be the last.

"That ... means a lot," Daniel Jackson says. "Seriously. You have -- pretty much no idea. I can't take you with me. I wish I could. But you've given me something I think I needed." He laughs again, colored with disbelief; it is the sound of someone faced with enormity. That alone would tell Teal'c the scope of the battlefield Daniel Jackson faces, the scale of the combat that will make the history fought in the valley beneath pale to insignificance. "I think. I hope. I don't know. I'm making all of this up as I'm going along. That's what worries me."

"Every war has a single battle to decide the victor," Teal'c says. "If you have chosen this as yours, be certain you are prepared to do what is necessary to ensure that victor will be you."

It is not much he can offer, these cold-comfort truths, but truth they are, and therefore more dear than any number of honeyed assurances. He believes Daniel Jackson would agree. And perhaps it is what he needed to hear, for his face eases, and he nods, once. "Okay," he says. "Okay. Yeah." He presses his lips together. "I can do that. But then I'm coming home."

Teal'c inclines his head. "I will wait your arrival gladly," he says. "Good fortune." 

There are flowers blooming in the grasses beneath them. Perhaps it is a comfort after all.

 

****

iv. 

Dark and cold and silent outside this circle. (Still time, waiting time.) Forest deep and primeval: potential. Clearing: safety, security. Home. Bonfire in carven pit sunk deep into earth's blood, heat licking across her cheeks. No pathways out past the trees. It would be danger, save for --

Presence. "Show yourself," she calls into the abyssal boughs, harsh-tongued in the language of her captor. (She will dream it to her end of days; some things write deeply.) Turn her back on the tongues of flame. Her eyes refuse to adjust to the darkness that lies beyond.

"The enemy that shows himself on command is not the true enemy." Friend. Beloved. Lover uncarnal, other and unattainable: everyone's burden, everyone's grace. Burning like the stars, brilliant, radiant, breathless challenge brought to bear on the world-that-is and not the world as he or she would have it. 

She blinks. He wavers. Refines: familiar. ( _Gone._ ) He wears a memory and smiles a promise, and there are volumes of love in his eyes. 

Curiouser and curiouser. "Are you then my enemy?" She turns to track him; he draws near. Reaches. His touch brands her skin as sure as the fire's embers would. He only tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"No. Never." Assurance; aplomb. "I came to remind you."

"Of?"

"A promise. One I never said out loud. I won't let them have you again."

(Guardian, guide. Protector standing between her and the ones who would claim her again. She has been used before: body, mind. Her spirit, indomitable, has never been touched, until him-and-them, a slavery no less profound for being willingly chosen.)

"I'm dreaming." Abrupt and sharp, set free in the air between them. She corrects. "No. I'm seeing." 

His outline shimmers again. Flickers: laughter. Of a type she has not yet known. The visual representation of a truth so profound it cannot be depicted. "Yes," he agrees. The same gentle teasing challenge she's always known. "I know it's confusing. It'll make more sense in the morning. You just have to remember: I won't let them have you."

"Who?"

"Anyone." In that moment: resolve. Implacability so firm, so fierce, she cannot doubt. He burns like the fire, but he's warmer, whole vast realms his kin, his kindling. "I'm going to go make it right. Don't worry. I know what I have to do."

She cannot doubt. She has chased his loving approval all unknowing this, the secret he hides behind a charming face. Messenger with no message but justice, righteous fury. His belief that he is the world's champion marks him so deeply she cannot apprehend. 

It is a lonely thing, to bear witness. She stretches out a hand. "Take me with you." (Even a messenger needs a guide.)

His shape dances regret. "I can't. I could bring you here. With me. I would, you know. But I couldn't teach you what you needed to know fast enough. It took me -- a long time. And I don't have much time left. They're coming for me, and I only have a little while longer."

"Before?"

"The endgame." He puts his not-quite-hands on her shoulders. "I'm going to fix this. For you. For all of you." 

He is guard and shelter, strength no less for his transubstantiation. (It sparks, sparkles. He once was, is no more, has been-left-gone and condemned them wanting -- she remembers, now, the agent by which he crossed, this-world, next-world, leaving her-and-them alone behind. It burns.) If he were to never leave her, she would be whole and entire in the shadow of his conflagration.

But he will leave, has left, is at-this-moment leaving and leaving again. She sees, now, that he has lived his life in a perpetual state of leaving-and-gone; what she thought she knew of him is nothing compared to the him that is here now, which is nothing compared to the everything he is moving to be. He is going, not to do battle with the enemies they are both (all) fighting, but to do battle with himself, with the potential-for-self that he has been denying for years.

And that tells her what she must do -- for he may believe he has come to deliver a message to her, but she knows that to be part-truth, shadow-truth. He has come to receive a gift only she can give, and the gift she can give is one he will require.

She lifts a hand to the shape of her chest, pressing against the breastbone where sleeps her heart. "Take this," she says. "I kept it for a long time. I don't need it anymore. It serves." 

She cannot say what it is she does, not even here where she has sight entire. Her hand trails webs of gold-spun sunbeams behind; she rests it against his throat and _wills_. Grants him her strength-courage-fortitude; wills him her determination and the preservation-of-self she shielded for so long, so fiercely. 

It is possible to hide the self-that-is-not-a-self behind the pillage of body-mind-soul. He has done it for some time now (since he left them, since he fell away) but he is nearing the end of his limits. She did it for years and years again. She does not need the secret now; it will serve better rendered unto him.

The coin of her gift has two faces. All precious things do. Shield, yes, and shield entire, but more than that: _knowing_. To shield and shelter that-which-is requires _understanding_. All part, every part: shameful and joyous, awful and awe-inspiring, the depth and breadth of that which makes a woman or man. Of what makes _her_ , of what makes _him_. Lines. Boundaries. The negative space that may not be filled with anything from that-which-is-not-self.

He has been her shield; she will give him hers. She needs it no longer. She will not allow him to hide from himself any longer.

"Oh," he says. " _Oh._ " He sounds, resounds, of awe and wonder. "I --"

"Be still," she says. "Stillness is where you no longer fight yourself. You cannot fight a war on two fronts. You will lose."

She knows this as deeply as she knows her own heartbeat, the shape and taste of her words and dreams. He has been his own refuge for far too long, but his form of refuge has been retreat from the face of understanding of that which he is being called to be. She does not know what war he goes to champion. But he would not be called to it if it would not require all of him.

"I can't take this." He is shaken. Humbled. She has not seen him thus in all the time of their acquaintance, but here and now is a place of truth, of true-depth. What they share is no more than metaphor, but metaphor is a weapon more powerful than most might think. She has known this for years. "You need it."

She shakes her head. "You need it more." She touches him: throat, cheek, lips. "Return it safely."

"I will," he says. He is fading, flickering; there is little left to him around the edges, like he has forgotten that he is to wear human seeming. And yet he is real just as she is real; as they have shared this time together, the dream has slipped away and become nothing more than truth. "I have one more favor to ask you."

"Speak it," she says. 

"If I don't come back. Look after them. All of them. Take care of them for me." 

There are razors in his voice, shaped of regret and pain and necessity and the knowledge that he cannot turn away from this need even if it will kill him. Or worse than kill him, for she knows the truth: he is already dead to her, and the question is not whether he will be able to return safely, but whether he will be able to rise again from the ashes like a phoenix having been baptized in flame.

If anyone can do it, she thinks he can. 

"I will," she says. Promise and prayer all at once. She has given him something precious to hold; he's given her the same. Perhaps the most precious thing he has. He has chosen her to tend his work, should he not win his way back to them; she knows what that choice costs him, and how little he is able (has ever been able) to pass his self-shouldered duties to another. 

She will be worthy.

 

****

v. 

Jack opens his eyes into the darkness. The clock in his head tells him it's just shy of 0430; he always keeps a shirt thrown over the glowing numbers of the bedside alarm that he only needs if he's drunk or three days gone to exhaustion. It takes him scant seconds to snap to alertness; he's always woken quickly. There's someone in the room.

"Hi, Jack," Daniel says, from where he's sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed. He isn't glowing, but Jack can see every inch of his outline anyway. 

Jack pushes himself up to his elbows. "Hey, Daniel," he says. Nothing to throw within easy reach, but he doesn't need to; covers aren't pinned down by any additional weight, and that tells him all he needs to know. "How's it going?"

"Oh," Daniel says, grinning like Jack hasn't seen him do in years, "little of this, little of that. Whole lot of the other. You know how it goes."

"Yeah," Jack says. He sits up the rest of the way. There's a part of him aching at the knowledge that Daniel's here, like this, now. Means Daniel's out of his reach. Daniel's been out of his reach for months now, but this is _finality_ , this is punctuation. This is the proof Jack didn't want and wasn't waiting for. Still. In some ways it's a comfort to know. "You gonna get in trouble for breaking the rules again?"

The grin's gone, wiped off Daniel's face like it'd never been there. "No," Daniel says. "Jack, I've got --"

He trails off. Jack waits a minute to see if he's going to finish. When he doesn't, Jack prompts: "Yeah?"

"I've got a solution," Daniel says. Quiet and soft, but there's steel behind it, the same steel Jack's been seeing since the beginning. "I just -- It's a real solution. A big solution. It's just -- going to cost."

"Not you," Jack says. Before he can think about it. He doesn't need to think about it. There are some prices he won't pay anymore, ever again.

It wrings a tender, fond smile out of Daniel. "Not quite," Daniel says.

Jack doesn't like the "quite" in there. "No," he says. "Not you. You need a sacrifice, you come and get me. I'm not letting you leave me behind again."

"If I do this right," Daniel says, "nobody's going to have to sacrifice anything ever again."

"I know you, Daniel," Jack says. "I know your plans. They suck. I know how much they suck. Whatever you think you can get out of it, if it costs us you, it's not worth it."

He doesn't say the part he's only thinking: that Daniel, Ascended, doesn't have the world's best track record in assessing tactics and strategy. That Jack never liked what it turned Daniel into, what it made Daniel do. That his little jaunt to Atlantis pretty much erased any last lingering hope the Ancients were the good guys. 

That if Daniel is Ascended again, it means Jack's already lost him; he doubts the Others are going to let him pull off a hat trick.

Daniel's smile turns rueful. Jack wonders why he bothers not saying these things, when he knows full well Daniel can read them on his face. They're open books to each other by now. "It's okay," he says. "Jack, you have to trust me. It's different this time."

"That's what you always say," Jack grouses, but it's automatic, because Daniel's right. Something is different. Daniel looks --

\-- _young_ \--

\-- happy. ( _"And then the world was young again." "Is that all?" "That's all there ever is. But it's enough."_ )

Daniel looks like he wasn't even when Jack met him: calm, peaceful. Freed of the demon that's been clawing up his insides for years, the one Jack's learned a thousand tricks to help Daniel chain or loose as needed. Without any of the distance or detachment Jack remembers from a tiny jail cell halfway across the galaxy. Daniel looks _whole_.

Jack has seen what Ascension made Daniel, made of Daniel; he built his life around Daniel's empty places. If the past five years have been a litany of all the ways Daniel came back wrong, this man sitting before him is a reflection of all things right. It makes Jack want to scream, or cry, or hit things until his knuckles turn pulped and bloody and blot out the voice in the back of his mind whispering _threat, threat, threat_. Daniel has never been a threat to him. Jack has never let him be. 

"I'm so sorry, Jack," Daniel says. His voice is an embrace. "I wish I hadn't -- I'm sorry. For all of it. I love you."

It feels too much like a goodbye. 

"I love you too," Jack says. It feels wrong. What they have can't be put into words. Daniel is always the one to say it first, and that's wrong too, because it makes Jack's feelings into nothing more than an echo. Jack's feelings aren't an echo. They're a fucking symphony, but he can't find the right key.

"I'm coming back," Daniel says. "I'm not -- I don't plan on -- I mean --" 

Jack hasn't seen Daniel flustered, at a loss for words, in a very long time. "It's all right," he says, sliding in underneath Daniel's halting sentences to shore him up. It's always been his role and his responsibility to take Daniel past the need for language and then lead him back home. 

Daniel shakes his head. "No. It's important --" 

He takes a deep breath. His eyes, when they meet Jack's, lay bare everything they have never confronted together: everything they are, everything they've done to each other, everything they've done for each other. All the ways in which they've savaged and served and saved each other. It makes Jack wince. He'd never realized Daniel knew. 

"You're my touchstone, Jack," Daniel says. And that, that is honesty; it's been so long since Jack's seen it. Daniel scrupulously tells the truth, but he is almost never honest, except for a few scattered moments, and it's taken Jack years to tell the difference. Daniel lies with the truth; it's his best defense. "I'll do everything I can to come home to you."

Jack can't think of any possible response. He's shivering: not from cold, but from knowing that Daniel's best might not be good enough. "Tell me what you need," he says. "Tell me what your plan is." He knows Daniel will read it for what it is: _let me help_.

Daniel lets his gaze skitter sideways. "I can't," he says, helplessly, and Jack feels it like a punch in the stomach. "And I've only got a little while before the Others notice I've Ascended again, and -- that's when this is going to get interesting."

"'Interesting'," Jack says. "I don't like 'interesting'."

"Yeah, well." Daniel's lips curve. "The only way out is through, right?" 

And yes, that's it. Whatever Daniel's doing, whatever Daniel's planning, Jack's certain of one thing: Daniel's heading off to war. And scholars and priests make the most frightening soldiers; they understand the need for a decisive victory. 

Jack doesn't need to know what Daniel's plan is. He knows that whatever it is, it will work. Or it won't. Or it will fail utterly, and in that failure, call down whatever lies beyond destruction. The stakes keep getting higher every time. And there's nothing he can do.

"Road to hell," Jack counters. 

He's expecting a passionate defense of Daniel's plan -- hoping it will give him some clue about what Daniel's plan _is_ ; he's not stupid enough to think he'll be able to talk Daniel out of it, but at the very least, he might be able to steer it a little -- but all Daniel does is close his eyes. 

"Don't do this, Jack," Daniel says, and the little note of _wrong_ sharpens to a great big fucking crescendo, because that's _need_ , and Daniel doesn't need anything. Or when he does, he doesn't let himself show it. If Daniel's showing it now, this is _big_ \-- bigger than anything Jack wants to face; bigger than all the things Jack had hoped they'd never have to face again. "Please don't do this to me. I need you to trust me. I need to know you believe in me. I need you to _define_ me. If I don't have that --"

"It's not a lack of trust," Jack says. "You just don't have the world's best track record when you're all --" 

He makes a little hand gesture intended to convey "glowing squid", and Daniel winces. It was a low blow; Jack will cop to that. But they've lasted this long with each other by having the willingness to go for the throat when it's necessary, and enough of a read on each other to know when those moments are. Jack loves Daniel. Trusts him. Believes in him. And never again will Jack believe that Ascension leaves anyone all-knowing or all-wise.

"Convince me," Jack offers. 

"I _can't_ ," Daniel repeats. His voice is agony. "Not won't, Jack. _Can't_. There aren't words for it. There aren't even _verb tenses_ for it. We've all been used as pieces in a game nobody could hope to understand, and I think I get it now, and I am _fucking sick of being played_." 

Jack closes his eyes. "Tell me what killed you this time," he says. It won't tell him anything, but he wants to know. It might be the last chance he gets to find out.

When he opens his eyes again, Daniel's found his self-control. "I did," he says. "It was the only way."

It doesn't surprise Jack. It should, but it doesn't; he's never been sure if Daniel values himself too much or too little, but he's always known Daniel understands the power inherent in a willing sacrifice. There have been times he's thought Daniel hated him and times he's thought Daniel hated loving him, and it's taken Jack this long before he realized the truth: that Daniel has come to love him more than he loves anything else on Earth or in heaven, save for one thing. 

Call it justice. Call it righteousness. Call it universal fairness, a set of ethics so complex Jack can't hope to ever map their edges and so internally-consistent he knows they come from somewhere so deep as to be near-primeval. 

If Daniel is willing to die for this, if Daniel sacrificed himself to achieve whatever battlefield he's drawn, the only thing Jack can do is kiss his soldier and send him off to war.

Metaphorically. Can't kiss a ball of glowing light, even if it does look like a guy Jack used to know. 

He hopes this time turns out better than the last one.

"I'll leave the lights on," Jack says. "Don't stay out too late."

The moonlight's wrong in the room. Or Daniel's wrong in the moonlight; it should glint against his skin, but Daniel looks like a tiny fragment of under-exposed film, dark and blurry like the light is being sucked into his skin instead of being reflected. "Morning's coming," he says, quietly. "Wait for me. I'll be back soon."

Jack chooses to take it as a promise.

 

****

vi. 

Cam remembers dreaming of dark water stretching out to endless sky, of a horizon of stars infinite in its beauty and the midnight breeze. He touches his lips in the shower and wonders why they tingle. He catches himself thinking of Sam, and wishing they could risk spending more than one or two nights a week together, wishing they could find ways to justify a shared bed and a shared home. Wishing he'd ever taken the time to make sure Jackson knew -- even if Cam never thought he'd want to hear -- how much Cam cares for him. It's one of those mornings where he wants everyone to feel like they're loved. It's Friday. He thinks maybe he'll go to church this weekend; it's been too long.

\-- _and_ \--

For the first time in months, Sam doesn't wake up until her alarm goes off; she isn't sleeping, hasn't been sleeping right for a long damn time, but this morning she wakes up to the morning news on the clock radio, promising clear skies and clear roads alike. She feels -- whole. Strong. _Prepared_ , ready for something she can't even name, full clear up of the sudden conviction that _everything will be all right_. When she gets out of the shower, she realizes she's singing to herself; she sticks her tongue out at her reflection in the mirror. Maybe, she thinks, it is time to start planning a vacation. She's always wanted to visit New Orleans. 

\-- _and_ \--

Teal'c opens his eyes and sits up in the same motion, grasping for the threads of his dream with every inch of his concentration. It flees as soon as he is conscious of needing to preserve it, but he is left with a sense of vastness: resolve, comfort, ease. He decides, as he makes his morning ablutions, that it is the feeling indicating something ineffable has been decided. He has no sense of what that thing might be, nor whether the decision will bring fortune or ill fate, but for this moment, he is content. 

\-- _and_ \--

Vala wakes tasting the ashes of fire endlessly ablaze, dry tinder catching at the spark of truth and rising to overtake the world. She shivers and tells herself it was more fantasy than memory. Her whole world is colored with the rising flames, and she feels empty -- missing something, missing something vast and valuable, but conscious of a new and different and precious thing in a place she has never known before. She resolves to call Jack in Washington this morning and tell him all the gossip of the Mountain, and once done, she will coax Cameron and Sam into telling her their current fears -- they are both the type of person who can't be happy unless they have someone who will _listen_ to them. Vala can listen. She won't worry about what has to be done for them, not yet, but it's about time she started to do more. For all of them. 

\-- _and_ \--

By the time they're sitting across the table from each other, sharing their morning meal and talking of inconsequential things, none of them remember their dreams. (They will each find reason to visit Daniel's office before the end of day, creeping in like thieves in the night, slinking away again when they realize they have no idea why they came or what they were hoping to find there.)

Jack lies in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, until the dawn begins to color the room. The clock in his head clicks over to 0530. He folds back the covers and begins his day thinking of Abydos, thinking of Atlantis, thinking of the Ori. Thinking of a young archaeologist with the fire of brilliance behind his eyes. Thinking of all the ways love and need diverge, and of all the atrocities necessity can produce. 

He's at his desk by 0700. He doesn't know how long he'll have to wait this time, but he can feel it: the storm's rolling in. When it comes, he's going to be ready.


End file.
